BEYOND THE VIRUS: There cannot be a pandemic without the State

Abstract

This paper starts with the acknowledgment of the importance of the State as an order-ing principle for the experience of the pandemic. Such a statement implies two complementary movements - although these will not be exhausted in the following pages. Firstly, it means that the notion of pandemic itself has a genealogy. It means that its emergence is the result of a histor-ical process and of specific political configurations, which are strongly associated with the con-solidation of the modern State. Second, if the treatment of the notion of a pandemic needs to be considered on the basis of its relationship with the state, an analysis of “pandemic” processes is undoubtedly a political debate. I finish by suggesting benefits of a possible approximation be-tween the notion of environmental justice and the critical principles for the analysis of the pan-demic that we are facing.

Dr. Jekyll e Mr. Hyde nos trópicos: governança disruptiva e justiça ambiental face à Covid-19

“…Nesse sentido, e tendo como eixo o contexto brasileiro e como caso ilustrativo a cidade de São Paulo, discutimos as hipóteses já apresentadas em outros trabalhos em relação às iniquidades e a justiça ambiental (Torres, 2020a;Torres, 2020b;Acselrad, 2020;Toniol, 2020;Travassos, Moreira, Cortez, 2020; entre outros) e a Covid-19. As pistas, indícios e sinais de uma distribuição desproporcional dos riscos, afetando prioritariamente e com mais força as classes mais despossuídas, começam a se confirmar com dados e material empírico.…”

Universalists or Utilitarianists? The Social Representation of COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil

“…However, due to the high frequency of evocation associated with this category, there is undoubtedly a political view of the COVID-19 pandemic [59][60][61], which is, however, less relevant for the population than the health problems associated with the pandemic. In other words, this category, as it is located in the first periphery-an intermediate quadrant between the central nucleus (hosting a category related to health) and the peripheral system (hosting a category related to the economy)-seems to function as a moderating variable in the utilitarianism vs. universalism debate that exists today in Brazil [62,63].…”